Controlled environment facilities, such as prison facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, and camps, often implement a certain amount of control with respect to various activities and transactions involving residents thereof. For example, communications into or out of such controlled environment facilities may be controlled, monitored, redirected, and/or interrupted at the direction of controlled environment facility management for security and/or business reasons.
In a prison facility, for example, telephone calls to and from inmates are typically tightly controlled and closely monitored. Accordingly, various call processing platforms have been implemented through which inmate calls into and out of a prison facility are controlled, recorded, and monitored. Such call processing platforms generally comprise a number of ports through which telephone trunks of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) are coupled to analog telephone lines associated with telephone terminals disposed in inmate accessible areas of the prison facility. Before one of the telephone terminals disposed in inmate accessible areas of the prison facility are placed in communication with the PSTN, logic of the call processing platform will make a validation determination with respect to whether the call is to be connected, such as to determine if calls are allowed at the time of the call, if calls are allowed to or from the particular telephone terminal, etcetera.
Wireless communications devices, such as cellular telephones, provide a means by which residents of a controlled environment facility may establish communications which do not pass through a call processing platform of the controlled environment facility. For example, although disposed within the confines of a prison facility, an inmate may use a cellular telephone to call an individual outside of the prison facility without the call being detected or controlled by a prison facility call processing platform. It is believed that between 1-10% of all calls being completed from prison facilities in the United States are presently being made using contraband cellular telephones. Such calls may present a security risk, may defeat a business goal of the controlled environment facility, etcetera.
For example, calls from contraband wireless devices are not being recorded, monitored, or controlled. Accordingly, there is a potential for harassment with calls being made to restricted numbers (e.g., victims, witnesses, judges, etcetera), the coordination of external/internal illegal business operations from within the facility, gang activity being coordinated from within facilities, riots or other activities being coordinated within and between facilities, and/or the general loss of command and control by facility leadership. Without the calls being monitored and recorded, calls made with contraband wireless devices reduce the effectiveness of the investigatory process.
Moreover, a controlled environment facility and/or service provider may have expended appreciable amounts of capital and resources to deploy a call processing system for safely and securely facilitating the privilege of residents placing and receiving calls. It may be expected that this investment is to be recouped through a surcharge or tariff on all resident's calls placed into or out of the controlled environment facility. However, as calls made using contraband cellular telephones bypass the call processing platforms typically relied upon to implement such a surcharge or tariff, the controlled environment facility and/or service provider may be unable to recover expected costs.
Accordingly, cellular telephones and other wireless communication devices are often prohibited within controlled environment facilities. In particular, the possession of wireless devices is prohibited within all prison facilities in the United States, and possession of wireless devices is a felony in three states. However, inmates have proven resourceful in having cellular telephones, or the components thereof, brought into prison facilities for use in placing and receiving unauthorized communications.
Various attempts have been made in addition to the aforementioned legal deterrents to discourage the use of wireless communications devices in controlled environment facilities. For example, prison facilities have often utilized thorough and concentrated searches, often referred to as “shakedowns,” to find contraband items including wireless communication devices within the facility. However, such searches are highly resource dependent. With budget dollars becoming tighter every year, this correctional officer function is competing against many other responsibilities and appears to be losing emphasis. Some prison facilities have utilized detecting devices to reduce the manpower and/or increase the effectiveness of attempts to locate wireless devices within the facility. However, such detecting devices generally require expensive technology to be deployed that still require a significant of administration and/or correctional officer time for monitoring and intervention.
Additionally, transmission of interference signals to block wireless communications has been suggested to discourage or prevent the use of wireless communications in controlled environment facilities. However, transmission of interference signals is problematic for a number of reasons. Radio spectrum is highly regulated in most countries and the transmission of interference signals is often prohibited or highly regulated in order to prevent arbitrary interruption of wireless communication. Moreover, some wireless communications technologies, such as spread spectrum code division multiple access (CDMA), are resistant to interference, often requiring broadband high energy interference signals in order to achieve meaningful blocking of communications. Such interference signals are costly and difficult to generate and effectively illuminate a controlled environment facility to provide effective blocking of communications.
Another attempt to discourage the use of wireless communications devices in secure areas is shown in United States patent publication number US 2002/0016180 A1 to Derosier (hereinafter Derosier). Derosier teaches the use of control signals to cause a cellular telephone to lower its transmission power so that transmissions from the cellular telephone do not reach any corresponding surrounding base stations. Such technology may be utilized to block cellular telephone use without substantial administration and/or correctional officer interaction. However, such technology does not provide any information with respect to the location of the cellular telephone or its attempted use.